Shopping with the Siblings

Since being released from hospital we've made a few trips to the local supermarkets with a variety of outcomes. There’s been times when we've come away thinking it worked out really well to other times when it’s been a complete and utter disaster! I've gone from being really proud of my daughters to feeling completely awkward by them.

Our last trip out has to be the worst experience we've had with our girls that both of us parents ended up feeling we needed to go home and fast! Due no doubt to over tiredness the girls yelled, threw tantrums, ran off and refused to be put in the trolley!

To add to this we’d picked up a burst milk bottle and the hand-held scanner that is supposed to make things quick and easy decided not to work when we got to the till! Needless to say we abandoned the idea of sticking around longer so that we may get that free cup of tea. I say ‘may’ as a couple of times they've run out of tea bags for making them and can’t take them off their shelves.

As I mentioned earlier not every shopping trip has been a complete disaster. One store we visit regularly is wonderful in that it provides distraction techniques for little ones such as free fruit and the delightful car/trolley that our eldest loves. Daddy said using it would be embarrassing so I pushed it round the store for the delighted toddler. There’s only one of these types of trolley though so it was great to use it when we could, while littlest got carried round in Daddy’s arms.

As we walked around the store I heard fellow customers comment on how cute and tiny our newborn is and what a good driver the toddler is. This is completely the opposite of what you get when the little ones are misbehaving.

Staff can also be really helpful, encouraging and supportive. OK you may argue this is due to customer service training but you do feel that many people can relate especially if they are fellow parents and will go out of their way to help you. Whether that be helping you by reducing things you want (if you go at the right time) to getting back into your car as in your baby brain like haze you've managed to forget your keys, locked the door and can no longer get to your toddler!

How do you occupy your little ones while out shopping? or do you resort to shopping online?

This post was originally linked up to the following linky's: Best and Worst, BloggerClubUK and Share with Me.